"Kidnapping General Charles Lee," Christian McBurney
Long before the creation of SEAL Team Six, Delta
Force and the United Kingdom Special Forces, both the American and British
armies already had their versions of special forces during the American
Revolution.
One of the missions of these 18th Century
special forces was to kidnap prime targets such as enemy generals. In December
1776 and July 1777, each side would succeed with daring overnight and early
morning raids where they captured an enemy major general who was only
half-dressed at the time of capture.
Christian M. McBurney described these two raids
at the May 20, 2015 meeting of the American Revolution Roundtable of Richmond.
McBurney is the author of the book entitled Kidnapping
The Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard
Prescott.
At the time of his capture Charles Lee was
second-in-command of the Continental Army. In fact he arguably possessed a more
impressive military career up until this point than the Continental Army’s
commander, George Washington.
Lee spent his early years in England and later
went to a boarding school in Switzerland. After completing his education Lee
joined the British army as a lieutenant and later fought in the French &
Indian War. He was wounded in the 1758 failed British attack on Fort
Ticonderoga.
Lee rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and
retired from the British army at half-pay upon the 1763 conclusion of the war.
A few years later Lee saw military action in Poland, Russia and Turkey where he
served as an aide-de-camp to the Polish king. After returning to England when
troubles began to brew between Great Britain and its American colonies, Lee
became sympathetic toward America’s concerns and moved to Virginia in 1773.
When war broke out at Lexington and Concord, Lee
volunteered his services to the American cause and hoped Congress would name
him the commander of the Continental Army. Instead, Congress named him the
third-in-command behind George Washington and Artemas Ward. When Ward resigned
his commission a few months later, Lee moved up to second-in-command.
Lee never held a great deal of respect for
Washington, and lost confidence in him during the New York campaign when Fort
Washington’s American garrison was forced to surrender to the British. Lee had
advised Washington to pull the garrison from the fort but instead Washington
listened to other senior officers who recommended strengthening the garrison.
After the British forced a surrender of Fort
Washington and crossed the Hudson River to capture Fort Lee, Washington
retreated with the main body of his army toward Pennsylvania while Lee stayed
north of New York City in the White Plains area with a small detachment.
As Washington retreated across New Jersey, he
asked and then ordered Lee to rejoin the main army with his detachment. According
to McBurney, Lee “dithered and delayed” in his efforts to rejoin the main army.
On December 12, 1776 while most of his troops
were camped three miles away, Lee spent the night in Basking Ridge, NJ at what
was called White’s Tavern. When Loyalists in the area learned of Lee’s
whereabouts, they promptly informed a reconnaissance patrol of British dragoons
under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William Harcourt and Cornet Banastre
Tarleton.
Under the cover of darkness the British dragoons
rode quietly toward the tavern, gathering information along the way from
captured American soldiers whom they threatened with death if they didn’t
cooperate. On the morning of December 13, 1776 the British dragoons surrounded
the tavern, captured Lee and quickly rode off with him.
At first William Howe and King George III wanted
to hang Lee as a deserter since he had served in the British army. When word of
this possibility reached the Americans, they threatened to retaliate by hanging
British officers if the British hanged Lee. Finally when Howe learned that Lee
had honorably resigned his British army commission, he agreed to treat Lee as a
prisoner-of-war.
Americans were shocked by Lee’s capture, and
some of them decided to do something about it. William Barton, a Rhode Island
lieutenant colonel who had risen from the rank of private at the beginning of
the war, devised a plan to capture Major General Richard Prescott, the
commanding general of a 4,000-man British army in Newport, RI. The Americans
had a particularly deep hatred for Prescott because he was known for treating
American prisoners-of-war very cruelly.
On the night of July 10, 1777 Prescott and his
small band of men rowed across Narragansett Bay in five whaleboats to Newport.
They carefully avoided British naval vessels and landed in an area where they
followed a small path which led them to the farmhouse where Prescott was
spending the night. Then they surrounded the house, seized the sleeping
Prescott and his aide-de-camp and returned to their boats. Prescott and his men
managed to dodge British artillery fire as they rowed back across Narragansett
Bay.
“Of course the British felt humiliated over a
small party capturing Prescott under the noses of 4,000 British troops and the
British navy,” said McBurney.
When word reached Washington about Barton’s
successful capture of Prescott, he immediately offered William Howe an exchange
of Prescott for Lee. At first Howe refused but later changed his mind. For
Prescott his capture and later exchange were a repeat of what happened earlier
in the war. During America’s invasion of Canada, Prescott was captured by the
Americans in November 1775 and was exchanged in September 1776 for General John
Sullivan.
As for William Barton, he ended the war as an
American hero and a prominent citizen of Rhode Island. When Rhode Island
finally ratified the U.S. Constitution on May 29, 1790, Barton was given the
honor of riding to New York City to give the official news to President
Washington.
Later in life Barton moved to Vermont and became
a real estate speculator. He lost money and at one point he was accused of
selling the same land to two different purchasers. After nearly 15 years of
litigation Barton was ordered to pay $600 in damages, which he refused. As a
result he was thrown into prison, and turned down requests from his family and
close friends to pay the $600 judgment on his behalf.
“His pride wouldn’t let him back down,” said
McBurney.
Barton spent 13 years in prison until the
Marquis de Lafayette heard about his imprisonment while the Marquis was passing
through Rhode Island on his American tour. Lafayette paid the judgment, and
Barton was released from jail at the age of 77. During his imprisonment three
of his children had died.
On October 22, 1831 Barton died at the age of
83---one of America’s last surviving Revolutionary War heroes.
Christian McBurney grew up in Kingston, RI. He
is a graduate of Brown University and New York University School of Law, and is
a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Nixon Peabody LLP where he focuses
on business tax law. He is a member of the American Revolution Roundtable of
Washington, D.C. and currently serves as its secretary.
In addition to his book on the kidnapping of
Charles Lee and Richard Prescott, McBurney’s other books are as follows:
1. Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island
2. The Rhode Island Campaign: The First French
and American Operation In the Revolutionary War
3. Jailed For Preaching: The Autobiography of
Cato Pearce, a Freed Slave from Washington County, Rhode Island
4. A History of Kingston, R.I., 1700-1900:
Heart of Rural South County
Prior to McBurney’s presentation before the
American Revolution Roundtable of Richmond, the following business topics were
discussed by the round table membership:
1. Various members announced several programs,
meetings and events taking place in the near future across Virginia that relate
to the American Revolution. Please see the ARRT-Richmond website for more
details.
2. Mark Lender, Chairman of the ARRT-Richmond
Book Award Committee, said the committee currently has nine candidates for the
2015 Book of the Year. Anyone wishing to nominate additional books may contact
Chairman Mark.
3. Lindsey Morrison, Fellow for Battlefield
Preservation at the Civil War Trust, gave a brief overview of Campaign 1776---a
new preservation organization which is a division of the Civil War Trust.
Campaign 1776 is dedicated to preserving America’s Revolutionary War and War of
1812 battlefields, and is currently attempting to preserve a parcel that was
part of the Battle of Princeton, NJ.
4. ARRT-Richmond President Bill Welsch said that
five preservation candidates are under consideration as ARRT-Richmond’s 2015
Preservation Partner. In the near future President Bill will send an email with
the list of 2015 preservation candidates to all ARRT-Richmond members who have
paid 2015 dues. Each member will be ask to review the five candidates and to
send back their email vote to President Bill.
5. President Bill Welsch reminded everyone that
the July ARRT-Richmond meeting has been moved to August.
--Bill Seward
